Sergey Ivanov
Professor Teddy Chocos
English 102
11 th of February 2013
Walker Percy is an author of “The Loss of Creature” which is a part of a collection of essays he wrote in 1975. “The Loss of Creature” is second chapter in this set of essays. It has its name because it describe how people lost the beauty of the God’s creation or any other place or view by spoiling it, by showing where to look and what to seek. It blocks individual thoughts so it is a loss of a society and everyone who witness it.
The author believes that people cannot enjoy things, which are well known in society for their qualities. These places were spoiled by a large amount of opinions and information which is provided by people who where there.
Planners take this information into account and build an image of a place into their minds, and they cannot enjoy the beauty of the place, they keep a thought in their heads that it is just a normal place. They start to take pictures and lose the moment to enjoy the greatness of a place. Interesting thing happens with tourist and tour guides. For example, the way a tour guide and a tourist see the Grand
Canyon is totally different. Tourist can enjoy his trip, do sightseeing and gaining new experience. On the first sight, tourist and tour guide are in the same position, but hey are not. Tour guide has been on this track hundreds or maybe

thousands times, so it became a beaten tack for him. When you do something for too long it became a routine for you, and even if it is enjoyable for tourists, it is not like that to you anymore. In the other hand, the more you visit the place, the more you see. It is like reading a good book, it is different every time.
Walker Percy’s language is hard to understand, but his thoughts are full of wisdom. He probably wanted people to understand what is really important is our life. Tourists for example do not enjoy the view, they are busy “taking pictures”. They try to save a good memory about a place, for example The Great
Canyon, but photo cam cannot picture all and it cannot show you the feelings and atmosphere of the place for sure. Every moment is precious in our life, and while pictures are just a reminder or a proof that you been somewhere, memories are the things that can give you a chance to witness the greatness of Grand Canyon again. Walker Percy tried to pass this knowledge to everyone, he wanted to show them where to look.
In the “Loss of Creature” Walker Percy has a very interesting quote: “The dialectic of sightseeing cannot be taken into account by planners, for the object of the dialectic is other than the subversion of the efforts of the planners.”
Actually this quote is an essence of the text. It says that opinions of other people should not spoil the picture of the place for you and it should not block your own way of thinking. In other words, if someone told you that the most beautiful mountain among the “Three Sisters” in Australia, is the one in the middle, do not focus just in that. Always doubt things. Personally, I strongly agree with this quote, because no one lives forever, so we should enjoy every moment of our lives, not to be busy “taking pictures”.